Mormon church now regards The Nauvoo Expositor as a “credible resource”

[The Nehor]

50 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

What was normal at the beginning of the 19th century does in no way control the average (median) age at the end of the century.  Presentism is the silly notion that what is acceptable today was always the case, which it was not.

What? Joseph Smith’s marriages were at the end of the 19th century? How? He was dead.

50 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Especially among haters and rumor-mongers, anything can be asserted with fervor, and reality ignored.  Presentism is modern people passing snap judgment.

Again, if it was normal back then why were Joseph Smith’s opponents back then able to make a big deal of it.

Presentism is not a magic wand that justifies anything or everything. It also means you actually have to look at the time and see how normal marriages to 14 year old girls were. Spoilers: They weren’t common. There were cultures they were more common in in that time period and in other cultures throughout history but you can’t cry “presentism” if the people in the culture Joseph Smith were in thought it was weird and they did.

This is like Confederacy supporters talking about how slavery was normal. At the time it was not. It was despised by a lot of the world. When you have hordes of people at the time saying it was wrong you can’t appeal to ancient Rome or whatever and say that it was accepted almost completely by other unconnected cultures and that somehow makes it okay.

You have to know the actual culture and not base it on vague generalizations about the past. There are a lot of popular myths about the past such as everyone wanted large families, everyone married younger, etc. That could be true in some circumstances and high infant and child mortality meant you needed to have about twice the number of children you wanted but accepted truisms about the past as a whole are almost always wrong.

One thing I have learned by studying history is that when people complain about some newfangled social or cultural thing they hate it has probably been around since the beginning of recorded history. When people talk about how things have always been they are usually talking about some temporary social construct that is probably only a century old.

[Benjamin McGuire]

26 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Spoken like a true presentist.  Passing harsh judgment on foreign cultures is morally abominable.  Anthropologists just don't do it.

 Nonsense Robert. I think you are misunderstanding the notion of presentism.

When you measure Joseph Smith's behavior by appealing to Old Testament contexts - when you appeal to Shakespeare, when you engage with other cultures at other times - this is also presentism.

There is a huge gulf between what you are doing and what an anthropologist does. Your apologetics is in fact deeply interested in passing judgement. You do not have some sort of intellectual disinterest in the subject. And I can see this all over everything you write in this thread.

On the other side of the coin, I am not being presentist because I am focusing on the practice and not the culture. Consider that we believe in a notion of "human rights" (granted you might not, but most of us do). When we have a human right, then that is a right that exists and defines moral principles that exist outside of a cultural setting. To go back to your comments - you use the term "infantilizing" because it invokes the idea of relationships between adults and infants. This is something that we believe is abhorrent regardless of the cultural context. We don't believe that you could produce even an imaginary context in which such a thing would be considered acceptable or even moral. We have the same beliefs about slavery today, and murder, and so on. This means that we believe that slavery is wrong in every context. This isn't passing judgement on those cultures that have engaged in slavery. This is passing judgment on the idea of slavery itself. An anthropologist has little concern with this issue - because his job isn't about discussing the morality of slavery in a particular context, but of the role that slavery played in that society and the causes and outcomes of that slavery. But your interest isn't this sort of disinterested anthropological point of view. So your suggestion of presentism is at best the pot calling the kettle black, and at worst nothing more than hypocrisy.

29 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yep.  A fair summary from our modern, enlightened POV.  Indeed, the tendency nowadays is to delay marriage -- if there is any marriage at all -- into the 30s.  Of course the Latter-day Saint, Amish, Hutterite, and ultra-Orthodox Jewish subcultures are more likely to marry earlier and to have a higher birthrate.

The number one factor for delaying marriage in the US is economic instability. It isn't simply a "modern, enlightened POV". I would go so far as to suggest that it is this sort of attitude that makes it difficult for politicians to have an interest in trying to address the root causes of low marriage and fertility rates. There is a reason why, in other countries who face this problem, that there is a such a different set of approaches. More free child care. More free education. Japan offers monthly cash allowances for children of the middle class and below. We get mandatory parental leave. Limits on overtime, and 4 day work-weeks. Anyway, it's a long list. Instead, we have a system that penalizes marriage for most people (especially those with children). And if you don't have a religious system that places significant value on marriage, you don't really get a lot of incentives to get married - and you have a lot of uncertainty when having children. On top of that, much of the US has housing problems, where the cost of housing has outpaced inflation even more than, say, the cost of a college education. To provide some context, if housing costs had simply kept pace with inflation since 1963, the average home today would cost only 178K, instead of the real average cost of 431K. The state of our society and its commitment to families is far different today than it was for you and I when we were young and starting our families. So anyone who simply claims that the state of marriage in our society is caused because a "modern, enlightened POV" is spewing nonsense - albeit these are the talking points of those who favor continuing to erode our social safety nets.

[Calm]

27 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

you use the term "infantilizing" because it invokes the idea of relationships between adults and infants.

Given Robert’s past comments, I believe he is referring to what he sees as the current overly extended childhood with the removal of much responsibility where teens and definitely those in their early 20s were required to contribute financially to the family either through labor or income much more than many are today according to certain claims.  

Hopefully he will correct me if I am wrong in my interpretation.  He may indeed be saying that when someone can earn an income, they should also be viewed as marriageable age, but I am not sure since he has discussed this outside of the issue of marriage in my memory, though I may be mixing him up with someone else (this would refer to parents still doing all the cooking and cleaning for their teens and young adults, parents paying completely for college, married children living rent and chore free in their parents’ house or parents even buying their home, etc).

I see this as separate from the marriage age though if a young woman had to leave home to get a job, she might be safer in many communities if married.  Given brain development I don’t believe younger teens should be leaving home.  Just because they did does not indicate it was healthy for them to do so.  (I believe judging anything that raises mortality and disease rates is reasonable to judge at any time period as counterproductive to a society’s needs, defensive wars may be necessary of course because one’s neighbors don’t actually care about everyone’s well being.)

Quote

 They had no high schools in those days, and a 14-year-old girl could teach school.  My grandmother was already a legal secretary in Kansas at 14, although she did go to high school and then to Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia.  Infantilizing our young people has not been a success.

 

Edited August 8, 2025 by Calm

[Benjamin McGuire]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Given Robert’s past comments, I believe he is referring to what he sees as the current overly extended childhood with the removal of much responsibility where teens and definitely those in their early 20s were required to contribute to the family much more than many are today according to certain claims.  This could be through chores and even possibly part time work at age 16, maybe younger.

I won't disagree with you about some of what you say here. The notion that adolescence as an extension of childhood is infantilizing comes out of the work of Robert Epstein - who believed that for many if not most of our children, adolescence is a completely useless period, constructed by psychologists. However ... I think that Robert wouldn't be particularly in favor of Epstein's solution - the creation of a competency test designed to determine when someone is ready for adulthood (ready to get married, etc). And hey, while we are at it, let's open up alcohol to adolescents, let's get them voting, driving cars, working overtime jobs, and so on. For the record, of course, in Epstein's view, parental permission should not be a part of adolescent marriage - after all, it should be their decision, and a recognition of their adulthood.

I don't really have an issue with Robert bringing this up - and Epstein isn't what we would consider mainstream by any stretch of the imagination. The problem is the language in this specific situation. When we are talking about preventing people from getting married at 14 years old as infantilizing them - there's a line that exists there that is being crossed through language - intending to create an emotional response. And if Robert isn't going to explain what he means by using that term, it becomes a problem. I think that most of us would all agree that much like the choice of drinking alcohol, the choice of getting married is not appropriate for 14 year olds - and our decisions not to let children drink should not be considered "infantilization" any more than not letting them decide to get married.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The number one factor for delaying marriage in the US is economic instability. It isn't simply a "modern, enlightened POV". I would go so far as to suggest that it is this sort of attitude that makes it difficult for politicians to have an interest in trying to address the root causes of low marriage and fertility rates. There is a reason why, in other countries who face this problem, that there is a such a different set of approaches. More free child care. More free education. Japan offers monthly cash allowances for children of the middle class and below. We get mandatory parental leave. Limits on overtime, and 4 day work-weeks. Anyway, it's a long list. Instead, we have a system that penalizes marriage for most people (especially those with children). And if you don't have a religious system that places significant value on marriage, you don't really get a lot of incentives to get married - and you have a lot of uncertainty when having children. On top of that, much of the US has housing problems, where the cost of housing has outpaced inflation even more than, say, the cost of a college education. To provide some context, if housing costs had simply kept pace with inflation since 1963, the average home today would cost only 178K, instead of the real average cost of 431K. The state of our society and its commitment to families is far different today than it was for you and I when we were young and starting our families. So anyone who simply claims that the state of marriage in our society is caused because a "modern, enlightened POV" is spewing nonsense - albeit these are the talking points of those who favor continuing to erode our social safety nets.

It is also worth noting that in many cultures people were getting married later for reasons that definitely weren’t due to a modern point of view. If you didn’t stand to inherit land you might not get married at all. In Imperial Rome if you were in the army you often couldn’t marry until you finished your service. Some had unofficial families that they would legitimize after they mustered out.

The idea that 1800-1950s American marriage pattens are some kind of idyllic universal past that everyone practiced before evil moderns and educated people and globohomonazis came along and messed everything up is a handy political myth but it is a lie.

The “quiverful” mentality in the Bible was also a practice for the elite. Having a large family could be a mark of distinction but if you were a peasant you didn’t want too big a family or you couldn’t feed them and your children wouldn’t be able to inherit and have their own families. So it is dangerous to take biblical injunctions and assume they were universal. They were mostly written for the kind of people that could actually read them.

And yeah, we are burning down all the reasons people in the US were willing to start families young and then whimpering about how no one is doing it. I recently watched an old-timer in a state legislature whine about how lazy kids are and talked about how he worked a part-time job to support himself and pay his way through college. The idiot didn’t realize that that is functionally impossible to do now. Mostly because when he went to a state college tuition covered around 20% of the university’s income with most of the rest coming from state funding. This has reversed with tuition now covering somewhere between 60 and 80% of the university’s revenue. So the reason it isn’t possible is because people like him changed the system. He found success and then decided to pull up the ladder to make it harder for others to follow while claiming the young are too lazy to follow and acting as if the ladder is still there.

If you want to fight social problems and provide opportunities you have to provide incentives. Complaining about ideological shifts won’t solve anything. Most of the ideological shifts come from people realizing the lack of incentives. I know people who want children but admit they probably won’t have them because they feel it would be irresponsible because they can’t support them.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Given Robert’s past comments, I believe he is referring to what he sees as the current overly extended childhood with the removal of much responsibility where teens and definitely those in their early 20s were required to contribute financially to the family either through labor or income much more than many are today according to certain claims.  

Hopefully he will correct me if I am wrong in my interpretation.  He may indeed be saying that when someone can earn an income, they should also be viewed as marriageable age, but I am not sure since he has discussed this outside of the issue of marriage in my memory, though I may be mixing him up with someone else (this would refer to parents still doing all the cooking and cleaning for their teens and young adults, parents paying completely for college, married children living rent and chore free in their parents’ house or parents even buying their home, etc).

I see this as separate from the marriage age though if a young woman had to leave home to get a job, she might be safer in many communities if married.  Given brain development I don’t believe younger teens should be leaving home.  Just because they did does not indicate it was healthy for them to do so.  (I believe judging anything that raises mortality and disease rates is reasonable to judge at any time period as counterproductive to a society’s needs, defensive wars may be necessary of course because one’s neighbors don’t actually care about everyone’s well being.)

It wasn’t teens that were working. It was children. Subsistence agriculture requires labor. Children worked as soon as they were physically able. Education was a privilege for those who didn’t have to labor. The big push for universal education in the United States came from the depression. Farming techniques had advanced to the point where capital was more efficient and less labor was needed and there was too much labor. Putting kids in mandatory schooling meant they couldn’t work and the value of labor went up and adults could make more money. Same reason Social Security became a thing. Get the very young and the very old out of the labor market. Oh, and education had the side benefit of letting teachers try to give kids more patriotic/nationalistic spirit in hopes of curbing the desire for communism or some other form of economic order. The robber baron experiment hadn’t worked that well. For some reason we have morons trying to bring back those days. Loosening child labor laws, gutting public education, and tearing down social safety nets. It is almost as if they want a socialist revolution. Or maybe they are just stupid and greedy? I don’t know.

Studies show later marriages (assuming you mean by that early to mid twenties in age) tend to be much more stable than earlier ones. Usually marriages at younger ages are unstable and lead to divorces if divorce is permitted. Funny that there is a strange interest in making divorce more difficult for people too. Almost as if they want to trap people in unhappy marriages……

[webbles]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Again, if it was normal back then why were Joseph Smith’s opponents back then able to make a big deal of it.

Presentism is not a magic wand that justifies anything or everything. It also means you actually have to look at the time and see how normal marriages to 14 year old girls were. Spoilers: They weren’t common. There were cultures they were more common in in that time period and in other cultures throughout history but you can’t cry “presentism” if the people in the culture Joseph Smith were in thought it was weird and they did.

Did Joseph Smith's opponents make a big deal of the 14 year old marriage?  I don't recall any place where it is brought up.  I thought this was one of the aspects that wasn't really known until Fawn Brodie documented it.

[The Nehor]

5 minutes ago, webbles said:

Did Joseph Smith's opponents make a big deal of the 14 year old marriage?  I don't recall any place where it is brought up.  I thought this was one of the aspects that wasn't really known until Fawn Brodie documented it.

Not directly but they talked about it as a kind of ‘dirty little secret’ and used euphemisms for the most part.

[webbles]

Just now, The Nehor said:

Not directly but they talked about it as a kind of ‘dirty little secret’ and used euphemisms for the most part.

Do you have references?  I'm trying to think of where these would be and I'm drawing blanks.

There's the letter and stories about Alger but she was probably 17-18 when it started (Don Bradley recently proposed that it was after the Kirtland Temple dedication so she would be 20).

The Expositor doesn't really have anything.  The closest thing is its referencing of Martha Brotherton but she would probably be >18 years old.

Law also sometimes talked about the Lawrence sisters, but they also were ~18.

[Doctor Steuss]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Spoken like a true presentist.  Passing harsh judgment on foreign cultures is morally abominable.  Anthropologists just don't do it.

If the judgment is that men shouldn't marry children, I'm totally ok with being morally abominable.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, webbles said:

Do you have references?  I'm trying to think of where these would be and I'm drawing blanks.

There's the letter and stories about Alger but she was probably 17-18 when it started (Don Bradley recently proposed that it was after the Kirtland Temple dedication so she would be 20).

The Expositor doesn't really have anything.  The closest thing is its referencing of Martha Brotherton but she would probably be >18 years old.

Law also sometimes talked about the Lawrence sisters, but they also were ~18.

Not from the Expositor but I am thinking primarily of Oliver Cowdery’s description.

[webbles]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Not from the Expositor but I am thinking primarily of Oliver Cowdery’s description.

His description about Fanny?  She never was 14.  Earliest age would be 16 which is young but Joseph would have been only ~28 and if she had been his only wife, I don't think there would have been much issue with it.  Most likely, she was closer to 18.

I don't think any opponents (and very few supporters) were even aware of the young wives.

Edited to add: Oliver Cowdery was 26 and his wife, Elizabeth Whitmer, was 17 when they were married.  So a 28 year old marrying a 16 isn't that much difference.  I think it is the polygamy aspect that bothered Cowdery, not the age.

Edited August 8, 2025 by webbles

[MrShorty]

Presentism is a tough nut to crack.

The other day, I listened to a podcast talking about changing attitudes in the church and the broader culture towards tattoos. In my youth in Utah, tattoos were very much "sinful" since they tended to represent rebelliousness. Today, tattoos are much more acceptable in the broader culture and carry multiple meanings. Of course, there are other cultures and times (thinking of the Pacific islands here) where tattoos were considered good. Was it wrong to villify tattoos in the past? Is the current laissez-faire attitude towards tattoos closer to how God views tattoos? However I and the culture of my current time and place might feel about tattoos, I sense that tattoos are not that morally significant, so maybe it doesn't matter that different cultures in different times and places have different opinions about tattoos.

How far does that go, though? Ancient meso-American clutures (the Aztecs, Mayans, and others) believed in human sacrifice. Perhaps I am just committing the sin of presentism, but my sense of right and wrong says that human sacrifice is wrong no matter the time and place. I recognize that nothing I can say or do in the 21st century can change what was happening in these cultures 500 years ago, but I cannot simply say that human sacrifice was "good" because their culture said it was good. I feel like I can say the same kinds of things about historical practices of slavery and genocide and racial segregation.

The problem with the church and Biblical history is that my church traditions tell me that I should accept the Bible and our prophets and apostles as moral authorities in my life. That they are important in helping me determine what is right and wrong. But these traditions don't tell me what to do when these moral authorities have their own questionable morals. Why should I accept the Bible as a moral authority when the Bible's morality includes genocide? Why should I accept 19th and 20th century LDS leaders as moral authorities when their morality included racism and segregation? If there are moral issues that have an absolute answer that is independent of time and place and culture, how will these sources help me recognize moral absolutes and distinguish them from issues that aren't morally absolute? So often, it seems that we get so worried about somehow "condemning" historical figures that we don't address the more important implications for our own efforts to discern right and wrong today?

[Notatbm]

1 hour ago, webbles said:

His description about Fanny?  She never was 14.  Earliest age would be 16 which is young but Joseph would have been only ~28 and if she had been his only wife, I don't think there would have been much issue with it.  Most likely, she was closer to 18.

I don't think any opponents (and very few supporters) were even aware of the young wives.

Edited to add: Oliver Cowdery was 26 and his wife, Elizabeth Whitmer, was 17 when they were married.  So a 28 year old marrying a 16 isn't that much difference.  I think it is the polygamy aspect that bothered Cowdery, not the age.

Helen mar kimball is the 14 year old Joseph smith married. 

Edited August 8, 2025 by Notatbm

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Notatbm said:

Helen mar kimball is the 14 year old Joseph smith married. 

I know that.  We are discussing whether Joseph's opponents knew of that and if they ever talked about it.

There is also Nancy Maria Winchester (age 14 - https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/nancy-maria-winchester/ ) and Flora Ann Woodworth (age 16 - https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/flora-ann-woodworth/ ) who are really young.  Helen is the best attested since she wrote about her marriage/sealing.

Edited - Oliver never talked about Helen, Nancy, or Flora.  By the time those sealings happened, he had left the church.

Edited August 9, 2025 by webbles

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, webbles said:

His description about Fanny?  She never was 14.  Earliest age would be 16 which is young but Joseph would have been only ~28 and if she had been his only wife, I don't think there would have been much issue with it.  Most likely, she was closer to 18.

I don't think any opponents (and very few supporters) were even aware of the young wives.

Edited to add: Oliver Cowdery was 26 and his wife, Elizabeth Whitmer, was 17 when they were married.  So a 28 year old marrying a 16 isn't that much difference.  I think it is the polygamy aspect that bothered Cowdery, not the age.

Sorry, I got two accounts confused.

Edited August 9, 2025 by The Nehor

[Tony uk]

This is a subject matter, I admit that I am way out of depth with. A few things crossed my mind, so I am welcome for any guidance on the matter. If Joseph Smith was married a number of times. Would these marriages have been in the traditional sense of man and wife. Or would they in another sense, have been more marriages of convenience. By marriage of convenience, I am considering, both the time and environment that Joseph Smith lived in. A woman who may have been on her own, lack of family, financial support and other similar situations. So there is a possibility, as I see it, that Joseph Smith took these women under is wing so to speak, possibly out of protection. The time and environment, I am trying to take into account for my thinking in this subject matter. In the modern era where adoption would be a natural process for an individual. Or providing other forms of support would be possible. Maybe in the era that Joseph Smith lived, then maybe marriage, but not the formal traditional accepted sense. Was the terminology used at the time, for a man to take a female into is care.

 

[webbles]

7 hours ago, Tony uk said:

This is a subject matter, I admit that I am way out of depth with. A few things crossed my mind, so I am welcome for any guidance on the matter. If Joseph Smith was married a number of times. Would these marriages have been in the traditional sense of man and wife. Or would they in another sense, have been more marriages of convenience. By marriage of convenience, I am considering, both the time and environment that Joseph Smith lived in. A woman who may have been on her own, lack of family, financial support and other similar situations. So there is a possibility, as I see it, that Joseph Smith took these women under is wing so to speak, possibly out of protection. The time and environment, I am trying to take into account for my thinking in this subject matter. In the modern era where adoption would be a natural process for an individual. Or providing other forms of support would be possible. Maybe in the era that Joseph Smith lived, then maybe marriage, but not the formal traditional accepted sense. Was the terminology used at the time, for a man to take a female into is care.

 

There is a LOT of disagreement around that.

Joseph married or sealed over 30 women.  I use both terms because there isn't an agreement on whether or not all the women were fully wives (with everything that entails in that relationship) or just some sort of sealing that had no physical connection.  There are some who argue that all of the relationships were sealings (some sort adoption or betrothal), there are some who argue that all were full marriages (with maybe some relationships maybe being interrupted), and some argue that it is a mix.

Another thing to know is that he wasn't the only one to practice polygamy.  He introduced it into the Mormon faith.  And after his death, the Utah church (and a few other Mormon sects) openly practiced it and in the vast majority of cases, they were marriages in the traditional sense.  So, if Brigham Young, John Taylor, etc (people who were taught by Joseph) treated polygamy as normal marriages, then it is highly likely that Joseph did as well.  There are people who do argue that Brigham Young corrupted Joseph's teachings in this regard.

I, personally, am in the bucket where most marriages were traditional and only a small few were marriages of convenience.  An example of a marriage of convenience (to me) is Fanny Young ( https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/fanny-young/ ).  She is the older sister of Brigham Young and was 56 at the time.  The story of the marriage is odd.  She apparently is worried that she doesn't have anyone sealed to her (her husband had died years ago) and so Joseph offers to seal her to himself.  It could have been a marriage in the traditional sense, but the story doesn't sound like that to me.

But we have some of the women, who testified under oath, that their marriage was a traditional marriage.  These occurred because of a lawsuit happening between the RLDS and the Church of Christ (Hedrickites) over the ownership of the temple lot in Missouri.  Both of them are Mormon sects but neither believed Joseph practiced polygamy.  The Hedrickites, though, reached out to the Utah church and asked them to prove that Joseph practiced it so that they (the Hedrickites) could then prove that the RLDS were not the real successors of Joseph (the RLDS was lead by Joseph's son).  Because of that, several women were questioned and said that they were his wife in every sense of the word.

[Tony uk]

8 minutes ago, webbles said:

There is a LOT of disagreement around that.

Joseph married or sealed over 30 women.  I use both terms because there isn't an agreement on whether or not all the women were fully wives (with everything that entails in that relationship) or just some sort of sealing that had no physical connection.  There are some who argue that all of the relationships were sealings (some sort adoption or betrothal), there are some who argue that all were full marriages (with maybe some relationships maybe being interrupted), and some argue that it is a mix.

Another thing to know is that he wasn't the only one to practice polygamy.  He introduced it into the Mormon faith.  And after his death, the Utah church (and a few other Mormon sects) openly practiced it and in the vast majority of cases, they were marriages in the traditional sense.  So, if Brigham Young, John Taylor, etc (people who were taught by Joseph) treated polygamy as normal marriages, then it is highly likely that Joseph did as well.  There are people who do argue that Brigham Young corrupted Joseph's teachings in this regard.

I, personally, am in the bucket where most marriages were traditional and only a small few were marriages of convenience.  An example of a marriage of convenience (to me) is Fanny Young ( https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/fanny-young/ ).  She is the older sister of Brigham Young and was 56 at the time.  The story of the marriage is odd.  She apparently is worried that she doesn't have anyone sealed to her (her husband had died years ago) and so Joseph offers to seal her to himself.  It could have been a marriage in the traditional sense, but the story doesn't sound like that to me.

But we have some of the women, who testified under oath, that their marriage was a traditional marriage.  These occurred because of a lawsuit happening between the RLDS and the Church of Christ (Hedrickites) over the ownership of the temple lot in Missouri.  Both of them are Mormon sects but neither believed Joseph practiced polygamy.  The Hedrickites, though, reached out to the Utah church and asked them to prove that Joseph practiced it so that they (the Hedrickites) could then prove that the RLDS were not the real successors of Joseph (the RLDS was lead by Joseph's son).  Because of that, several women were questioned and said that they were his wife in every sense of the word.

Thanks for that Webbles, I appreciate the reply/post. I feel I am starting to have a better understanding of the situation. 

[manol]

7 hours ago, Tony uk said:

This is a subject matter, I admit that I am way out of depth with. A few things crossed my mind, so I am welcome for any guidance on the matter. If Joseph Smith was married a number of times. Would these marriages have been in the traditional sense of man and wife. Or would they in another sense, have been more marriages of convenience. By marriage of convenience, I am considering, both the time and environment that Joseph Smith lived in. A woman who may have been on her own, lack of family, financial support and other similar situations. So there is a possibility, as I see it, that Joseph Smith took these women under is wing so to speak, possibly out of protection. The time and environment, I am trying to take into account for my thinking in this subject matter. In the modern era where adoption would be a natural process for an individual. Or providing other forms of support would be possible. Maybe in the era that Joseph Smith lived, then maybe marriage, but not the formal traditional accepted sense. Was the terminology used at the time, for a man to take a female into is care.

 

Imo webbles gave you a really good summary.  Yes there were testimonials in court of women who claimed to have been Joseph's wife "in every sense of the word", and yes the LDS Church leaders after Joseph taught that he had instituted the practice.  On the other hand, Joseph's public stance was apparently anti-polygamy. 

So, either way there are arguably unsettling implications.  Unfortunately it seems to me that the available information on this topic almost always comes with some bias (including this post of mine).

In my opinion, if the Holy Spirit tells you that the LDS Church is the path for you, that is what matters most. 

[teddyaware]

2 hours ago, webbles said:

There is a LOT of disagreement around that.

Joseph married or sealed over 30 women.  I use both terms because there isn't an agreement on whether or not all the women were fully wives (with everything that entails in that relationship) or just some sort of sealing that had no physical connection.  There are some who argue that all of the relationships were sealings (some sort adoption or betrothal), there are some who argue that all were full marriages (with maybe some relationships maybe being interrupted), and some argue that it is a mix.

Another thing to know is that he wasn't the only one to practice polygamy.  He introduced it into the Mormon faith.  And after his death, the Utah church (and a few other Mormon sects) openly practiced it and in the vast majority of cases, they were marriages in the traditional sense.  So, if Brigham Young, John Taylor, etc (people who were taught by Joseph) treated polygamy as normal marriages, then it is highly likely that Joseph did as well.  There are people who do argue that Brigham Young corrupted Joseph's teachings in this regard.

I, personally, am in the bucket where most marriages were traditional and only a small few were marriages of convenience.  An example of a marriage of convenience (to me) is Fanny Young ( https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/fanny-young/ ).  She is the older sister of Brigham Young and was 56 at the time.  The story of the marriage is odd.  She apparently is worried that she doesn't have anyone sealed to her (her husband had died years ago) and so Joseph offers to seal her to himself.  It could have been a marriage in the traditional sense, but the story doesn't sound like that to me.

But we have some of the women, who testified under oath, that their marriage was a traditional marriage.  These occurred because of a lawsuit happening between the RLDS and the Church of Christ (Hedrickites) over the ownership of the temple lot in Missouri.  Both of them are Mormon sects but neither believed Joseph practiced polygamy.  The Hedrickites, though, reached out to the Utah church and asked them to prove that Joseph practiced it so that they (the Hedrickites) could then prove that the RLDS were not the real successors of Joseph (the RLDS was lead by Joseph's son).  Because of that, several women were questioned and said that they were his wife in every sense of the word.

It’s certain many will find the following response to be bizarre and outrageous (so be it!) but it presents some of the out-of-the-box ruminations that I’ve allowed to pass through the processes of my mind with regard to plural marriage and the church. Let me start by saying it’s been conflicting and simultaneously amusing for me to imagine that some present-day general authorities have engaged, or may still be engaging, in passionate carnal relations with their spouses. I say conflicting because we so often hear about how spiritually destructive it is for any member to engage in sexual relations outside of marriage that at times it becomes difficult for me to imagine that a general authority and his wife could actually engage in the “forbidden act” and actually enjoy themselves without feeling at least somewhat guilty and ashamed that allowed they themselves to succumb to the lustful desires of their fallen flesh. This post-coital guilt and shame would seen to especially hold true for those general authority couples who are beyond childbearing years and yet still engage in “the act” to satisfy their sexual desires. In other words, I sometimes allow my imagination to entertain what is surely the mistaken notion that if a general authority couple actually allow themselves to indulge in the enjoyment of sexual relations that their spiritual sensibilities must be at least somewhat offended because they allowed themselves to succumb to their carnal lusts. Meanwhile when I allow the better angels of my nature hold sway, I can plainly see how it’s possible for righteous, divinely sanctioned, spiritually edifying sexuality to exist among the leaders of the church.

I bring these issues up because I believe one of the main reasons why so many members can’t bring themselves to imagine plural marriages that would include sexual intimacy could possibly be entered into in righteousness because most people (myself included) have “dirty minds” that can’t even begin to imagine that it’s possible for a man who’s spiritually mature and filled with the Holy Ghost to romantically love more that one woman at the same time and to have wholesome, divinely approved sexual relations with more than one wife.

The bottom line is I think it’s more than likely that so many members of the church coil in revulsion at the very thought that many early leaders of the restoration had plural wives is because their own fallen natures and carnality won’t allow them to see through the fog of cognitive dissonance so as to be able grasp the possibility that plural marriage can be practiced in righteousness by those who are spiritually mature and sanctified by the Spirit. Because I know of a surety that the church is true, I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion that the principal of celestial plural marriage, as set forth in Doctrine and Covenants 132, is one of the deeper mysteries of the gospel that the those with carnal minds will never be able to comprehend because, by very nature, they are spiritually incapable of understanding the principle due to the fact that their minds are not yet sanctified. In the end, I’m perfectly confident that when the dust of controversy finally settles, all the facts are in and the half informed conclusions have finally been put to rest, we will all clearly see that the early prophets and leaders of the restoration did nothing wrong and that their righteousness will be vindicated in the end.

 

Edited August 9, 2025 by teddyaware

[CV75]

16 hours ago, MrShorty said:

Presentism is a tough nut to crack.

The other day, I listened to a podcast talking about changing attitudes in the church and the broader culture towards tattoos. In my youth in Utah, tattoos were very much "sinful" since they tended to represent rebelliousness. Today, tattoos are much more acceptable in the broader culture and carry multiple meanings. Of course, there are other cultures and times (thinking of the Pacific islands here) where tattoos were considered good. Was it wrong to villify tattoos in the past? Is the current laissez-faire attitude towards tattoos closer to how God views tattoos? However I and the culture of my current time and place might feel about tattoos, I sense that tattoos are not that morally significant, so maybe it doesn't matter that different cultures in different times and places have different opinions about tattoos.

How far does that go, though? Ancient meso-American clutures (the Aztecs, Mayans, and others) believed in human sacrifice. Perhaps I am just committing the sin of presentism, but my sense of right and wrong says that human sacrifice is wrong no matter the time and place. I recognize that nothing I can say or do in the 21st century can change what was happening in these cultures 500 years ago, but I cannot simply say that human sacrifice was "good" because their culture said it was good. I feel like I can say the same kinds of things about historical practices of slavery and genocide and racial segregation.

The problem with the church and Biblical history is that my church traditions tell me that I should accept the Bible and our prophets and apostles as moral authorities in my life. That they are important in helping me determine what is right and wrong. But these traditions don't tell me what to do when these moral authorities have their own questionable morals. Why should I accept the Bible as a moral authority when the Bible's morality includes genocide? Why should I accept 19th and 20th century LDS leaders as moral authorities when their morality included racism and segregation? If there are moral issues that have an absolute answer that is independent of time and place and culture, how will these sources help me recognize moral absolutes and distinguish them from issues that aren't morally absolute? So often, it seems that we get so worried about somehow "condemning" historical figures that we don't address the more important implications for our own efforts to discern right and wrong today?

I think an "absolute answer that is independent of time and place and culture" is, on that basis, is equally conditional and contextual, just on other terms.  The sources you mention (prophets, scripture) point to a covenant, worship-love relationship with Christ which serves as a reliable absolute for what we need to do in our gift of mortal time, place and culture (Acts 17: 26 - 28). Grace, so evident int eh worship-love relationship, covers all the deviations we might think of, especially for others.

[MrShorty]

@teddyaware It's interesting how sexual mores and ethics have been an important part of my faith crisis/deconstruction/reconstruction. I started from the same kind of "good boys don't want or enjoy" sex that you describe, deconstructed that (which included deconstructing prophets, since Pres. Kimball et. al. were adamant that oral sex was inappropriate in marriage, which let me see that sometimes the church's sexual ethic is overly and unnecessarily conservative/restrictive). As I deconstructed my sexual ethic, I came to see, as you said, that one man could possibly romantically love and desire more than one woman at a time without disobeying God's laws. However, it was a slippery slope. I could also see that it is possible for one woman to romantically love and desire more than one man without disobeying God's laws. Eventually I came to accept that a man could romantically love and desire another man (and woman-woman). The church taught me an overly restrictive sexual ethic, and, when I deconstructed that, I discovered that proper sexuality could incorporate a lot of situations.

At present, my sexual ethic is mostly built on principles of consent, mutuality, and agency. When I think of the problems I see in the 19th century practice of polygamy, those are the problems that I see. Let's face facts -- Emma never consented to Joseph's polygamy. Sure she occasionally gave verbal approval (always under some form of duress, IMO), but it's clear that she was never fully and wholeheartedly converted to the practice. On that basis alone, Joseph should have never married other women.

[california boy]

On 8/7/2025 at 8:04 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliette were only 13 years old, scholars consider that Mary the Mother of Jesus was only 14 when she bore Jesus, King Josiah of Judah was 13 at the birth of his first child (his next children born when he was 14 and 16 to his plural wives Zebudah and Hamutal).  Fourteen was a legal age of marriage in most American states in Joseph's day.  Presentists ignore all that.  Why?  They had no high schools in those days, and a 14-year-old girl could teach school.  My grandmother was already a legal secretary in Kansas at 14, although she did go to high school and then to Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia.  Infantilizing our young people has not been a success.

So Robert, if you have no problem with adult married men marrying a girl that is only 14, then why is this never discussed in Church lesson manuals and explained away, like you have here, as no big deal?  Seems like it needs to be discussed as being no big deal???  Maybe it should be made clear that God approves of adult men marrying 14 year old girls and the practice should be encouraged today since it seems obvious to you that this is what God wanted Joseph Smith to do.  

This isn't about presentism as much as it is about what is right in the sight of God by a man claiming to speak to God on a regular basis.

[Robert F. Smith]

22 hours ago, Calm said:

Not even to say that it appeared to be socially harmful for teens to have children given the higher mortality rate of younger mothers?  Is it inappropriate to judge death of mothers as undesirable for a society?  Is the ability to produce many healthy future citizens an important quality in a society?

What social need would be more important than saving the lives of young mothers?  Serious question.

I am separating this from marriage. I see it as possible to form the bonds between families seen as necessary for political stability or financial gain by performing betrothals while the young woman ages to a better survival rate.  Thus one could grow wealth and prevent wars while also prevent high maternal death rates among young women.

Yes, of course.  You and I live in modern times and should avail ourselves of modern medical fact.  However, blaming people in the past for not knowing all this is the true fantasy of presentism.